Hestia vs Athena

Recap

This year I let the captains pick Gods/colors in the order of who has captained the most times. It was a merit based system, because captains are always so good to help me out, so I think the ones who do it the most should get a little bonus. And color selection, although not the most important thing in the world, is still pretty important. You’re gonna have that jersey for a long time. Erick Cifuentes is now on his 11th year captaining. That ties him with me for the most. (I’m not captaining this year, cause I’m not playing, cause of my stupid groin.) And Erick chose wisely, selecting Athena.

Here’s a little knowledge drop. I wonder how many of you remember the old Tootsie Roll commercial “How Many Licks Does It Take”

The original version of this commercial had the kid asking several different animals, and the last one says “go ask the owl, he’s the wisest”. Why is the owl the wisest? This actually goes back to Athena of ancient Greece. Athena was the Goddess and wisdom and always had an owl at her side.

Here she is from one of my favorite films growing up “Clash of the Titans” from 1981.

Are owls really wise though? Here’s a quote I found from a webpage asking that very question:

“In fact, they may be significantly worse at problem solving than other big-brained birds like crows and parrots. One study found that great grey owls repeatedly failed a simple cognitive test—pulling a string to get a treat—that had been successfully solved by several other bird species.”

Myth BUSTED!!!!

And now, let’s see how Athena performed in their first game of the year. Here’s Buster from Athena, editing a recap written initially by Charles Narauth who was there as a spectator:

It was a bitter battle among the virgin goddesses last night as Athena fought Hestia for the Rancho Cienega field. With the league getting right under way, Hestia, the goddess of family and home, immediately took charge of the field, leading point after point for an initial run of 3-0. Athena, with her wisdom of playing Ultimate, started slow, learning her strengths and weaknesses through field awareness and throwing opportunities. Athena learned the best ways to put up defensive measures against Hestia with Johnny denying a few scores only for Hestia and her team to swing it around and make the win through other avenues.

Hestia took the 4-0 lead, and then used the power of Mnemosyne to reverse the pull and make Athena pull to them. At this point there were a few turns and Athena called the first time out of the game, determined to bring her team together and win this war. The point ended with Snacks hucking it deep to Claw then swinging it into the end zone. Luigi scores the second point, and then a third. Score stood at 4-3 Hestia’s lead.

Realizing this comeback, Hestia took her time out and came back in determined to fight. Taking the next two points, Hestia proved calm and collected against Athena.

Athena rallied back on the battlefield, taking nice overhead scores from Snacks and fighting hard for every turnover that occurred. Deep throws were shut down by Hestia as Athena worked her way point for point through the game. Hestia, however, took half at 8-5.

Entering into the second half, Hestia had had enough of Athena. Starting with one point, Hestia began walking away, taking it 9-5, 10-5, 11-5. While Athena did get one point in to show she still had some fight in her, Hestia didn’t mind, coming back with a 12-6 lead. Hestia was starting to get a little cocky around this point, taking deep throws herself, having one go extremely out of bounds. Athena, on the other hand, was fighting hard to stay alive, taking the disc inch by inch up the field, swinging it back and forth to the handlers, center to Butters, then right sideline. Kodomo, working to make Athena proud, catches a win for the next point, ending the round 12-7. Athena calls her second time-out of the game, working to regroup the soldiers.

Both teams trade a point during the next round, raising the stakes to 13-8 with Hestia fighting hard to end the bloody match. Johnny intercepts one of Hestia’s discs and allows Athena to work it up the field, bringing the score to 13-9. Hestia, done playing around now, finishes off Athena with a final two point drive, ending the game 15-9.

Athena used the power of Themis to reverse a call at some point during the second half. Athena called out of bounds, the Hestia player checked his feet, called himself in, and then Athena over turned the call for a turn. Hestia got a D right away and went in for the score. For this game, both powers were used, and both powers failed.

So in all four games yesterday, Mnemosyne’s power to force the other team to pull to you was used as the first power, making the other team use Themis’ power to overturn a call. There’s two more games on Thursday. We’ll see if Mnemosyne’s power is also used first in those games, but since it already will end the week as the power most selected by the first team, it will move on to next week to face a new power, yet to be determined. Then the way it’ll work is Mnemosyne will be dropped in week 3, regardless of which power is used first more often, and a new power will take its place, and so on.

Bonus points for knowing that both Athena and Hestia were virgins. Athena did have children though. They were born from her thoughts. That’s awesome. Wouldn’t you love THAT power?

I have another recap. This one from Hestia’s Dylan Patton:

First night of Summer League, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Both teams were only missing a few players, and everyone was ready to ball out. Hestia got to know each other quickly and broke into a box drill, while Athena spent most of their pregame in the huddle. Hestia won the flip and opted to start on defense. Hestia came out on fire and caused the first turn. After a few throws, Ed Melo threw a jump ball to a group of men in the end zone, which was cleaned up by one of Hestia’s twin towers, Noah Tomaszewski.

Hestia breaks Athena three more times to make the score 4-0. Feeling like our luck was about to run out, we decided to use the power to make them pull to us. Our feeling was right, because we got broken, three times…time out. Once both teams had regrouped, the level of play increased drastically. Each team had gotten to know each other a little better at this point, and some chemistry was showing. Some notable defense was played by Athena’s Johnny Lam, and Hestia’s Enway Melo. Also a couple amazing grabs by Hestia’s Gabrielle Sjoberg. Hestia took half at 8-5.

The second half was filled with some more amazing defense by Enway, and some great play by Hestia’s women, and even some of our newer male players. Claw, Snacks, and Luigi all played well, but Hestia was able to capitalize on every mistake. Hestia ended the game quickly with a final score of 15-8.

I fixed the score to make it 15-8, instead of 15-9 as reported by Athena. Hestia had a scorekeeper there, and you can’t argue with a scorekeeper.

I don’t really care about the final score, but I did want to clarify that we verified the score with peeps from Hestia when the game ended, and Duck was also Athena’s “unofficial” scorekeeper on the sideline…